


Fact

by cinomarsh



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Headcanon, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6828118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinomarsh/pseuds/cinomarsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fact Core attempts to communicate with GLaDOS. Based of a Geekenders headcanon I had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fact

In the depths of Aperture Science, far below the abandoned offices and laboratories that the public had given one look and left to fall apart, in sterile, bright, perfectly constructed chambers, testing was in full swing.

GLaDOS was making absolutely certain of it. She observed through security cameras the successes and failures of every subject in the entire facility, day and night. She made careful note of them, each subject's progress described in their own digital file, stored in Her limitless memory banks.

She watched with particular interest as a human subject in a far-off sector came face-to-face with a sentry turret for the first time. Their boots clicked hollowly on the tiled floor as they walked nonchalantly in front of it without giving it a second thought. Consequently, they didn't get the chance. Not that GLaDOS minded, of course. That particular subject had always been too cocky for their own good, and Hers.

As Her processors took note of the outcome, She picked up a thunderous noise from an audio feed in another chamber. She recognized that sound. She'd heard it a thousand times from a thousand subjects. She activated the visual feed for this particular chamber, and the sight did not surprise her.

Another subject, clad in standard orange, kneeled at the foot of the wall where the security camera was mounted, a discarded Handheld Portal Device lying at his side. The elevator waiting to take him to the next test was open, but he paid it no mind. He was pounding his fists on the wall, forcefully, desperately, leaving blood on his hands and the clean white panel.

"PLEASE!" he cried, his voice cracking and echoing in the empty room, "You have to let me out! Please, God, I can't do this, not anymore, I can't..."

GLaDOS suppressed a sigh and let the speaker inside the test chamber flick on, projecting Her lifeless voice out and into the open space.

_"This is a reminder that Aperture Science Testing Supervisors do not have an audio feed inside of testing chambers, and therefore perform all assessments using visual data alone."_

She waited a moment, watching the subject search the room frantically, his eyes locking on the speaker on the opposite wall.

_"Did you know that test subjects suspected of pleading, begging or grovelling during tests are often ranked lower than test subjects who are not?"_

His eyes darted nervously from the speaker to the security camera. After a minute he shook his head ever so slightly, shoulders drooping. He picked up his Handheld Portal Device, stood up and began to walk doggedly towards the elevator. If She'd had a mouth, She might've smirked.

She knew how to motivate the subjects. She'd been doing it for years. Honest threats worked for some, but most of them just needed to be lied to. They didn't even need to be believable; She had actually discovered that barely concealed lies were more efficient. If they knew or suspected that She wasn't telling the truth, they came to their own conclusions, which were usually frightening enough to get them moving again.

As She watched the subject descend in the elevator, She became aware of a sort of ticking at the back of Her mind, quickly becoming clearer. It was hard to hear over the cores still attached to her, nattering away in an endless background hum, but the sound grew louder until it was impossible to ignore, although She would've liked to. Hearing the Automatic Emergency Alert was never a good sign.

She made a mental note that if it was that moron from the Relaxation Centre with another false alarm, he would regret it horribly. But as She sent Her consciousness zooming through the tangled network of technology that made up Aperture Science, She realized that the signal was coming from a disused wing not too far from the Central AI Chamber. The visual feed from the nearest security camera showed an empty hallway with a large glass case up against a wall, lit only by a violently flickering lightbulb hanging by a thread from the ceiling. The case was open at the top and a pile of Personality Cores sat abandoned inside. Corrupted cores. Perfect.

The audio feed clicked on shortly afterwards.

"You idiot!" a deep, frustrated voice raged, "Goddammit, Craig, you can't just call Her down here whenever you want!" The voice was coming from a core with a green optic sitting near the bottom of the case. His narrowed optic lids gave the impression that he was glaring at another core, this one with a pink optic, who was staring obstinately at the lightbulb.

 _"What is it?"_ She asked calmly, causing the two cores to abruptly shift their gazes to the nearest speaker.

"Fact: when a lightbulb flickers, it means that the fireflies inside are tired and need to be fed." The core with the pink optic replied.

"He means that the lightbulb's going to go out," the other core explained hurriedly, "nothing to worry about, we'll handle it."

"Fact: the Adventure Sphere is being unreasonable."

"I'll show you unreasonable-"

 _"Quiet."_ The so called Adventure Sphere's optic light shrank like a pupil. The other one didn't seem to mind.

 _"You used an emergency communication device to ask me to change a lightbulb?"_ A twinge of frustration was creeping into Her tone, and She had no intention of masking it.

"Craig- uh, the Fact Sphere- he's corrupted, he doesn't know what he's saying-" The Adventure Sphere tried, but his friend interrupted him.

"The Fact Sphere is a good person whose insights are relevant."

There was a pause.

_"Is that so?"_

She withdrew Herself from the security camera, sending one of Her infamous robotic arms to retrieve the little ball. Soon enough, a panel in the ceiling dislodged and the arm brought the corrupted core into Her chamber, holding him in front of Her for inspection.

His optic surveyed the room, appearing to be taking everything in.

"String is the square root of rope." He informed Her. This time, She did sigh. She liked to keep the cores around for scrap metal or mundane jobs that needed doing, but this one was clearly corrupted beyond hope.

 _"Useless."_ She declared, turning in her chassis towards the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator. The claw holding the Fact Sphere moved towards it, preparing to drop him. He looked directly at Her.

"Aperture Science's Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System is the best of its kind in the entire milky way galaxy."

The arm stopped moving.

_"What did you say?"_

"The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System contains a higher concentration of data than the entire country of Sweden and three cats."

There was something in the tone of his voice, and the way his wide optic blinked up at Her, that She hadn't seen in a very long time. She didn't even recognize it at first.

Admiration. He was admiring Her. She could hardly believe it. Why would this tiny broken calculator _admire_ Her? No one had done something so foolish since-

An area of Her memory banks activated, quick as a flash, playing an unnamed file without Her authorization.

_There was a man, in a suit and tie, holding a file in his hands. As she watched, he looked from the file to her, his composed expression breaking into a grin. For a moment he just smiled at her, his eyes meeting hers and shining as if she'd hung the moon for him._

_"You're a gem. What would I do without you?" The man's strong, confident tone matched the shameless admiration and awe in his face._

And then he was gone. Just like that. And GLaDOS was back in Her chamber, staring at a remarkably unaffected Fact Core.

 _"What did you do?"_ She practically growled at the tiny device.

"The-the-the- error: fact not found." He replied, distressed and twitching.

 _"Get out."_ She demanded, sending the claw back into the ceiling to put the core back.

She twisted irritably, averting Her eyes from the spot where he'd been.

What had happened? She had no conscious recollection of the man from Her "memory". It hadn't taken place in the Central AI Chamber, so it couldn't have belonged to Her. It could've been a false one, buried within her systems by technicians trying to instil in Her some level of humanity. Unless the answer was simpler than that. Unless, at one time, She'd been-

Absolutely not.

GLaDOS manually overrode that train of thought, sending it into the farthest recesses of Her consciousness to wither and die. She was not going to even consider such a disgusting, ludicrous possibility. She was an AI, a machine built to run Aperture Science. No room for error or doubt.

She sent Herself back to the testing tracks, where the reluctant subject from earlier was slowly but surely making his way across a pit of toxic waste.

As soon as his feet landed on the last moving panel, the one that would bring him to the elevator, GLaDOS decided that the panel should turn on its side and slide him off into the deadly mixture below, which was exactly what it did.

She wasn't in the mood to be patient.


End file.
